From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2014 23:15:42 -0500

And this is precisely the dilemma for university presses in deciding
what books to put into such ebook aggregations. The undoubted
pedagogical benefits for teachers and students come at a high cost to
presses that, in this manner, lose significant revenues from the sale
of paperbacks for course adoption.  The more students and faculty gain
financially from this arrangement, the more presses lose in being able
to publish these books in the first place. Of course, being an OA
advocate, I'm not opposed to abandoning the market as the basis for
funding scholarly publishing. But the present model on which most
university presses operate is not such as to make that a feasible
option--yet.

Sandy Thatcher


> From: "Hamaker, Charles" <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2014 05:44:54 +0000
>
> Jim's posting made me review  what is happening with UNC Charlotte's
> ongoing eTextbook project.
>
> Some of you know that last fall we realized about 31 titles we had in
> two of our eBook package were also assigned as textbooks for classes
> on campus.  When we recognized that from the bookstore textbook list,
> we marketed them.
>
> For Spring 2014, we consciously purchased a few titles that were
> available within our purchasing guidelines, i.e. unlimited
> simultaneous users, no DRM and perpetual access based on the December
> bookstore list.  We ended up with about 51 titles.
>
> That was so well received on campus as a pilot that for Fall 2014 we
> created an "eTextbook" database, inviting faculty to select any of
> about 200,000 eBook  titles that we owned our could purchase from our
> publisher partners for use under those guidelines.
>
> One of the surprises of the Spring semester was a graduate history
> course, taught entirely using library e-resources, including 4
> monographs from Oxford, Indiana, Harvard and Wesleyan Univ. presses.
> The professor did not notify the bookstore of ANY titles, and did not
> notify the library he was doing this.
>
> For Fall 2014, the numbers of titles are about the same as Spring
> 2014, but I'm sitting here today in just one example watching a
> faculty member who began on the first of July to select titles from
> our database and today was still adding titles for a course she's
> teaching this fall.  Again, I doubt she's notifying the bookstore, why
> would that be necessary?  She is at the present up to 8 monographs
> from various presses for a WGST class.
>
> I've talked with faculty the past years, and some feel  a bit guilty
> when they are asking students to buy 4 titles for class.  The free
> availability of eTextbooks, however, seems to me to liberate  faculty
> from that restraint.  There is no cost burden for the student if the
> titles are, like these, part of library purchasing.  In addition to
> saving students real dollars, maybe this kind of access changes the
> potential and the practice of teaching.
>
> I'm wondering how much - as Jim and others have puzzled in this thread
> - a change in pedagogical and research practices will come about if we
> can make more of these titles available for our faculty and students.
> More reading, more targeted reading?  a broader range of exposure to
> ideas and authors?
>
> Maybe we are in the process of creating  tomorrow's scholars with an
> entirely different perspective on books?  And the expectation of easy
> access, and comprehensive coverage supporting a wide range of reading
> - will it generate a new renaissance ?
>
> Didn't  one person per book, the old dead wood model, tamp down access
> or act as a funnel?  We may be opening - if purchase conditions
> support them - the potential floodgates, not battening down the
> hatches for humanities and social sciences literatures.
>
> Chuck